The relationship between renewable energy use and health expenditures in EU countries

With the increased attention on renewable energy use especially in the European Union, it also becomes worthwhile to investigate the positive effects of renewable energy use on human development measures. As non-renewable energy use may contribute to health hazards, it makes sense to think that increased renewable energy use may positively influence public health or increase the funds available for health expenditures. This research therefore aims to explore the relationship between renewable energy use and health expenditures for 27 European Union member countries. The analysis indicates that the relationship is unidirectional for countries hat joined the EU before 2000 and bidirectional for those that joined after the year 2000. Also a country by country analysis indicates the direction of the relationship for individual countries for both groups. This research is unique in the sense that the causality analysis is separately conducted fort the two groups of EU members labeled as pre-2000 and post-2000.